User:Harithsaif

In that day the sun was in the heart of the sky, that seems like the others I toke my car and drove to Wilayat of Awabi (120 Km from Muscat Air port ) which has very nice valley it seemed normal like other limestone’s valleys in Oman but it was different. When you look carefully on the rocks you can see drawings of animal’s human figures and many other kinds of drawings. I asked my self who draw these drawings and when they have been drawn and why. So many questions came to my mind. Then I decided to search about answers.

First I tock pictures about the drawings which represent the life in that time. And I surprised when I saw drawing represent carriage surrounded by horses and guards with swords and rows. These figures represent a king, so those drawings where like words before the human being discovered the writing and in the same time they are very old because man discovered writing 7000 years ago. So those drawings are like a key which can be used to know the history from its original resource, The ancient man wrote his history him self and this the importance of the Rock Art, actually Rock art was necessity that led to invite the rock art method, ancient man needed to memorize things and to tell the others what he saw and what he think .So he recorded his battles and daily life actions. When I tried to study rock art in Oman some difficulties faced me, there are only two researches have been done about rock art in Oman and both of them have been done in 70s. So I depend on field study and the drawings classified in tow main categories nonobjective and expressive.

Nonobjective drawings are describing the things as they are in reality while expressive drawings have a meaning different from the closer meaning, for example you can see some figures represent see very long spear in the hand of horseman which cant be real but the length of spear gives a idea a bout the strength of the fighter. The animals also mentioned in Omani Rock Art so we can know the animals which lived in Oman long time ago. Drawings of elephants and leopards can bee seen in the valleys banks and this is a proof that those animals were here long time ago and know they are extinct currently. Kathryn Coleman one of the archeologists who studied rock art in Oman was surprised when she saw a drawing represent a port in Wadi Bani Rwaha in Wilayat of Samail. The drawing describing the movement in old ports in Majan (The ancient name of Oman) it is showing big ships and train of camels and horses, this gives an idea about the importance of Oman in ancient world transportations. The location played an important rule in that because Majan was in the middle of the ancient world, The drawing showing that Majan people used the squared clothes in the ships while the Alexander The Great when he came to the region in his way to fight India (460 AD) he used profanation in ships. This can tel us the experience which Majan people has in navigation long time ago. Also this experience was used in trade because Oman exported copper and stones to Babel and there was connection between Oman and China, India and other parts of the ancient of the world. The transferring from drawing to writing is not one step but it took long time and the secretes of that steps my be found between these drawings. For example drawings can bee seen an also Arabic writings but there are so many strange drawings and kinds of writings which must be analyzed to know more about the mysterious history of this part of the world. When I looked in these drawings I remembered that I am reading a book which’s one of the oldest books in the world, the book which written in rocks, the two banks of valley seemed like two pages of a book.

These drawings are so important and they need real protection and the most effective one is to inform the people about the importance of these drawings. also these drawings can be shown for tourists to inform them about the Omani history. Also researches must be done and every drawing must be recorded and but it in archive to help archeologists and researchers to study this human phenomena and to let the world know more about the history of Oman which recorded in Rocks.



This article writen by me Harith Al kharousi